@aggieguy wrote:Today was the conclusion of a journey that has been in the making for several months. I called First Premier to close my account. I logged into the website to verify that my last $14.50 monthly fee payment had posted and the account was at a $0 balance. It was. So I dialed their number.
After the routine prompts that tell me 0 is not a valid option I finally got in touch with a CSR and explained to her that I would like to close the account. She told me she would have to transfer me to an account closure specialist. This person came on and told me she was sorry that I wanted to close the account. She asked why and I simply replied, "this account is too expensive."
She asked for claification, "what part of the card is too expensive?"
I replied, "All of it. The annual fee, the monthly fees, the interest rate. Everything."
She then said, "It looks like your annual fee is paid through next May, so all you have right now is the monthly access fee to keep the account open."
Annoyed I said, "Yes, I no longer wish to pay $15/month to keep a $700 credit limit open. I would like to close this account."
Next she asked me, "Is this possibly your oldest card?"
"No, it's not," came my reply.
"Okay, what if I put in a request to get you a higher limit?" she asked.
"I do not authorize you to pull my credit report for an increase," I said.
"Then what if I was able to give you a $200 increase, taking you to $900, right now for no charge and no credit pull? That would normally cost you $50."
(I had forgotten about the $25 fee per $100 increase.) "No, that's ridiculous. I do not want to ever have to pay for an increase."
Her last nugget of wisdom was reading a sentence or two from myfico.com, she said. It was about how closing a card would remove the available credit from my pool and could thus increase utilitization or debt to income ratio which would be bad.
I acknowledged this fact and repeated my request to close the account.
She finally said, "Very well, I have closed your account. Thank you and have a nice day."
FREEDOM!
Your story inspired me to do the same. I just finished my phone call and I almost started laughing when the lady kept trying to tell me the exact same information that you had in your story. But after telling her "that's fine, just cancel my account" about 20 times, my time with FP is OVER!!!!!!!
And to follow through on that inspiration, I also called and cancelled my Matrix and Credit One cards. NO MORE SHARKS!!! As was stated before, they served their purpose and now it is time to move on.
Geez, that was a lot of work just to close an account. Congrats on your new found freedom!
Congrats OP, I know it feels good to be rid of these guys!
I like the chopping block section of your siggy.....
Longroad wrote:
Your story inspired me to do the same. I just finished my phone call and I almost started laughing when the lady kept trying to tell me the exact same information that you had in your story. But after telling her "that's fine, just cancel my account" about 20 times, my time with FP is OVER!!!!!!!
And to follow through on that inspiration, I also called and cancelled my Matrix and Credit One cards. NO MORE SHARKS!!! As was stated before, they served their purpose and now it is time to move on.
Bravo! I'm glad my story could inspire such good steps for you.
@eagle2013 wrote:What?! So glad you are getting away from that card! How are they able to get away with that....usury anyone?
Yeah, it is quite ridiculous. But people sign up for it. I signed up for it. At the time I was in "desperate need."